


It's Not That We're Scared

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s04e15 Outcast, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-02
Updated: 2008-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-03 20:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John gets back to Atlantis that night, Rodney's waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Not That We're Scared

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the splendiferous Trin for betaing.

When John gets back to Atlantis that night, Rodney's waiting. He watches as John emerges from the wormhole, ignoring Carter's greeting; his stride never falters as he heads from the 'gate room back towards his own quarters. Rodney braces his hands on the railing and looks down at Ronon, who's standing there with one overnight bag clutched in each big hand. Rodney cocks an eyebrow and Ronon shakes his head silently. Rodney sighs. Figures.

Rodney gives him a little time—finishes the final calibrations on the sensors so that they'll be ready before Radek goes back to M7G-677 with them in the morning—gives him the half hour he knows John will need to kick his bed and throw stuff at the frustratingly unyielding Ancient walls.

But when the doors to John's quarters slide open a little before midnight, Rodney sees John sitting on the foot of his bed. He looks up when Rodney walks in, but he doesn't speak; his hands are resting on his lap, lax and loose, and Rodney doesn't like to look at how empty they seem, how purposeless. He fidgets instead: turns over the half-finished sudoku books on John's night-stand, paces an aimless path between door and desk while he tells John about his adventures amongst the Lilliputians, inspects the wall and the ceiling and his feet with a careful, cautious gaze. John says _yeah_ and _sure_ and right, McKay, sounding more tired than anything else; but when his voice cracks, rusty, Rodney huffs out a big breath and gives in.

He crosses the two steps that separate them, pulls John up from the bed and gathers him up into a hug. Rodney holds on tight while John tries his best to get free—protesting and squirming and stiff and sad in turn—before he feels him give in, slumping to bury his face in the curve of Rodney's neck. He lets go with his whole weight, like a tired and overwrought three-year-old seeking reassurance from older arms, and John's hands come up slowly to fist themselves in Rodney's t-shirt.

"Hey," Rodney whispers, very quietly against his ear. John shudders once, convulsive and contained, and his arms are so tight around Rodney now that it's almost hard to breathe. Rodney waits.

"He... he was a good dad," John confides eventually, in a voice that sounds almost bewildered. "I missed him."

Rodney takes a deep breath and looks out the window at the wide, blue-green expanse of the ocean. He knows that feeling: of the painful mutual love of two people who can never understand one another, not even a little; of having someone be part of your marrow and the beat of your heart, someone whom it is easier to uproot from your life though the pain of losing them can leave you breathless. He's buried his parents, too.

Against his neck, John's eyelashes are spiky and a little damp. Rodney knows the effort it must be costing John, to hold it all inside, to not let anyone see. Rodney knows; he's seen him do it before. John's not quite so good at hiding as he thinks.

Rodney lets one thumb stroke at the soft skin of John's nape, right where sun-browned skin vanishes beneath travel-wrinkled black cotton, and says, "He knew, John. He had to."

John moves his head slightly; whether in denial or in refusal to accept, Rodney's not certain. "I couldn't—" John says, and he sounds like he's choking on his words, like the expanding pressure of his grief is the one thing that could force from him everything he's never said, everything he's never told Rodney or himself. "I couldn't. Rodney—"

Rodney rocks them slightly, summoning up everything he remembers from long, hot childhood summers spent babysitting: soothing Jeannie's tears, accepting with something like grace the crotchety, sticky toddler who could only be consoled by a nap in her beloved Mer's lap. He calls on everything he's learned about bravery from watching John for four years, and he holds on tight, and whispers fiercely, "I know you, Sheppard. You always could, and he'd have to have been an absolute—you should never have to be sorry that you're you."

John huffs out a rusty laugh against his shoulder, and says "Rodney," squirms like he's going to move away.

"Shut up, you moron," Rodney hisses, and twists so that he can press a dry and graceless kiss to John's temple. He stays there, holding John as tight as he knows how; and after a little while, after a space of heartbeats and unhurried breathing, John stops trying to get away.


End file.
